Avalon, the isle of the gods has suddenly emerged from the depths of the ocean. Flocks of adventurers are headed over there to discover its history and treasures left behind. There are seven different playable characters with their own back story and reason for going to Avalon. I chose Garnet, the Templar who seeks to disprove the existence of other deities. I was accompanied by Owen the mercenary and Meurs the elementalist. Other playable characters include Filmia a frog prince, Bianca the amnesiac, Eloise a seductive alchemist, and Liber the treasure hunter.

Changing party members becomes possible when you encounter them in the town of Initium or wandering about in different areas of the island. Each character has a preferred role and weapon, but you can still configure them any way you like. Characters can be attackers, blockers, or supporters.

Attackers are your offense while the blockers protect the party of three from attacks. The support character is responsible for healing, buffing, and casting elemental shields to further protect the party. The more an attack or ability is used the better chance it has of randomly leveling up in battle.

Highlights:

Strong Points: Fun exploration of ancient ruins and uncovering the mysteries and powers of the previous civilizationWeak Points: Randomly upgraded stats in battle makes grinding very tedious and lengthy; not much story or character interaction Moral Warnings: Elemental magic is used throughout the game; fantasy violence; the word b*stard is used once; some females wear outfits that accentuate their body

Leveling up in Legend of Legacy is quite different than most JRPGs I have played. When fighting enemies, you have no guarantee of getting anything out of the battle. Sometimes you’ll get money or an item drop, but not often. The stronger the enemy is, the higher chance you have of leveling up your attack or support ability.

The elemental system is rather unique as well. As you map out and explore the terrain, there are singing stones that will grant you new elemental abilities. These abilities can be used once a contract is formed with that element type. Contracts can be forged in certain types of terrain automatically, or manually in battle when an equipped singing shard is used. Once a contract is forged, any party member can call upon that element to cast unlearned spells with equipped whispering shards. Once a skill is learned it can be summoned through an elemental weapon or through the equipped whispering shard. Unfortunately, each character only has two item slots so mastering all of the elements is rather challenging.

The lack of inventory space is also challenging when it comes to healing. There are equippable healing kits, but the elements are nice to have on hand as well. The water element has a healing ability as well as a purifying technique that can cure negative statuses. Thankfully, after battle all of the characters are fully healed.

If a character falls in battle they can be revived with healing, but their max health will be reduced until they rest at an inn. You can leave a fallen character alone, but if they faint while they are down the game will be over. Be sure to utilize the save button at the inn and the quick save while traveling.

The enemies are visible and can usually be outrun if the terrain is agreeable. Some areas have mini-boss class monsters that cast a shadow that will trigger a battle if it gets stepped on. While some boss battles are avoidable, not all of them are. If you find that your party is under-leveled, it will take more time to grind in this game due to the random nature of the leveling system. While I appreciate the unique system, it’s frustrating at the same time with no way of knowing how much time it will take to strengthen my party.

Other than that gripe, I enjoyed exploring and mapping out the terrain and learning about the previous inhabitants. The 3D graphic style reminded me of Bravely Default, but the gameplay is quite different and both games are fun in different ways.

The character dialogue is minimal and the banter between the party members is not voice acted. There is a female narrator that explains the lore behind newly discovered areas on Avalon. The background music is pleasant to listen to and a soundtrack is available as a pre-order bonus.

For the most part, Legends of Legacy is a pretty clean game if you don’t mind some fantasy magic and violence. The alchemist Eloise dresses a little provocatively though. There is some banter at the tavern about some characters not being on the "dating" menu and the word b*stard appears in the dialogue once.

With seven different playable characters and backstories, there is plenty of replay value in Legends of Legacy. One play through can take a while with the grinding involved so I’m not sure if I want to play it another six times to see all of the character stories. If you like exploration, mapping, and JRPGs Legends of Legacy is worth looking into for $40.

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Christ Centered Gamer looks at video games from two view points. We analyze games on a secular level which will break down a game based on its graphics, sound, stability and overall gaming experience. If you’re concerned about the family friendliness of a game, we have a separate moral score which looks at violence, language, sexual content, occult references and other ethical issues.